Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c26.s6: 6.6 Medial vowel notation in Bhattiprolu inscriptions

Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c26.s6

Language: English

6.6 Medial vowel notation in Bhattiprolu inscriptions

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Bühler has pointed out that the notation of the medial vowels in the unique inscriptions on the stone caskets at Bhattiprolu shows the following orthographic peculiarities:²

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(a) The short *-a* is invariably marked by the horizontal stroke to the right of the consonant, which denotes the long *-ā* in the Mauryan alphabet except when an *anusvāra* follows;

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(b) The long *-ā* is usually marked by a horizontal stroke and a vertical hanging down from its end.

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There is no ambiguity in this system, unlike in TB-I, between the medial *-a* and *-ā* which have distinct markers (see Figs. 6.¹ & 6.²).

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¹ For the system of Reference Numbers to words in the Corpus, see Table of Conventional Symbols.

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² G. Bühler 1894b: p. 324. See also section 5.6.3 in this vol.

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[Figure: Figure 6.1. A casket inscription from Bhattiprolu (C. Sivaramamurti 1952: Fig. 67).]

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[Figure: Figure 6.2. Medial vowel notation in the Bhattiprolu script (after T.N. Subramanian 1957: Fig. 5).]

| Apparent reading | Actual reading with Bhattiprolu notation |
| **sā mā ṇō sā mā ṇā dā shō** | *samaṇō samaṇadāshō* 'Samaṇadāsa, the monk' (on the lid of Casket III. See Fig. 6.1, middle, third and second lines from the bottom). |

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Bühler deduced from these 'peculiarities' that "the consonants have no inherent *-a*" and that the vowel notations of the script were "invented in order to avoid the necessity for ligatures".¹ His deductions are astonishingly correct considering that neither can be illustrated from the inscriptions he edited. However, his conclusion "I do not think that it (the Bhattiprolu script) teaches us much regarding the history of the Southern Maurya characters"² has turned out to be wide of the mark. We can now see that the basic principle behind the Bhattiprolu notation must have originated in Tamil-Brāhmī and that its use at Bhattiprolu (probably by a Tamil scribe) was fortuitous because the casket inscriptions are in Prakrit which does not require this special notation. In fact, there is not a single example in these inscriptions of a final basic consonant which is the *raison d'etre* of the Bhattiprolu notation. However, the evolution of a separate marker for the medial *-ā* removing the ambiguity between the medial *-a* and *-ā* in the TB-I notation is an advance presently known only from Bhattiprolu.

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¹ G. Bühler 1896 (1959 reprint): p. 31.

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² G. Bühler 1894 b: p. 325.